The characters acquired their permanent names after an in-house contest held by MGM, with animator John Carr submitting the winning entry. Carr may have been inspired by the names of the two young tearaways in the 19th Century Life in London stories by Pierce Egan, or perhaps by the eggnog-like beverage known as "Tom and Jerry" (itself named after Egan's characters), or possibly even by the earlier, human animated duo created by Van Beuren Studios (for which Barbera worked at the dawn of his career) in the '30s. In any event, the Tom and Jerry series went on to become one of the most popular and successful of all time, with seven of its shorts winning Academy Awards. The only other theatrical animated series to win as many Oscars was Disney's Silly Symphonies.

After MGM's animation unit closed in 1957, Hanna and Barbera started their TV animation studio. No new Tom and Jerry cartoons were produced until MGM revived the series in the early 1960s, contracting it to Czechoslovakian-based American Gene Deitch.

On September 25, 1965, CBS began broadcasting a Tom and JerryAnimated Anthology on Saturday mornings. Two years earlier, Chuck Jones had begun directing another series of theatrical Tom and Jerry shorts, taking over from Deitch and bringing production of the series back to Hollywood.

In 1975-77, Hanna-Barbera produced a less violent Tom and JerryAnimated Anthology series for ABC-TV, supported by a new character, the Great Grape Ape. This was followed in the early 1980s by Filmation's version on CBS, which used the classic slapstick formula. Another series, Tom and Jerry Kids, ran on the Fox network from 1990 to 1993. From 2006 to 2008, the CW network's animation block included Tom and Jerry Tales, which continued with the slapstick humor of the theatrical shorts, as did a series of direct-to-video films. Tom and Jerry Tales was canceled after 4KidsTV took over Kids WB, but the movies have continued.

Warner Bros. acquired the rights to Tom and Jerry after purchasing Turner Broadcasting System, which in 1986 had purchased MGM's entire pre-1986 library. Interestingly, since then it seems like Warner has been treating Tom and Jerry better than their own Looney Tunes (probably due, in part, to the commercial bombing of Looney Tunes: Back in Action). Tom and Jerry has been the only classic cartoon series to air consistently on Cartoon Network. Since acquiring the rights to Tom and Jerry, Warner has produced several direct-to-video movies - and Tom and Jerry Tales - which, for the most part, stay true to the classic Tom and Jerry form. After which came the 2014's version of The Tom and Jerry Show, which is made in Adobe Flash but otherwise continues the usual format of the series.

Oh, and don't confuse them with thatVan Beuren'sTom & Jerry cartoons (which were renamed Dick & Larry in later home movie rereleases to avoid confusing them with the cat and mouse). It'll save you a lot of trouble. Or, for that matter, the musical duo that went by the name "Tom and Jerry" for 7 years before switching to their real names.

Notable shorts include:

Puss Gets the Boot (1940): The debut of the characters, and the short that establishes the series formula. Also the first of several Oscar-nominated shorts in the series.

1945

The Mouse Comes to Dinner

Mouse in Manhattan: A Lower-Deck Episode centered solely on Jerry visiting Manhattan, New York, with Tom only appearing briefly in the opening and ending. Notably uses the song "Manhattan Serenade" for almost all of the picture.

Anchors Aweigh: An otherwise unrelated theatrical film which includes a sequence featuring Tom and Jerry.

1948

Kitty Foiled: First appearance of the Canary.

The Truce Hurts

Old Rockin' Chair Tom

Professor Tom

Mouse Cleaning: One of the two "banned" Tom and Jerry shorts. Jerry Beck claims that it will be included, restored, in a future collection to make up for its removal from the Spotlight Collections. The short is still aired on TV, albeit edited to remove the (fairly lengthy) scene of Tom in blackface.

1975

1980

1986

Tom and Jerry's Funhouse debuts on TBS Superstation (WTBS-TV Atlanta). It features Tom and Jerry shorts, And it also features Looney Tunes, Popeye, Pink Panther, Droopy (and other MGM cartoons by Tex Avery), and the only live action short: The Three Stooges. Ended in 1995.

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